Diary of an Asian Kid

22 Feb 2011

Note: I have actually gotten all this written up, all the way until the start of high school, but I didn't think that anyone was actually reading this here so I forgot about publishing for quite some time.

So forgive me for my posting spree. There are more than sixty chapters left, and we'll see how my three-minute enthusiasm holds up. Here's hoping I get much-needed publicity by updating so frequently.

22 February 2011, Tuesday

First day of the mocks! It's the fourth now, I think. We're doing English, Science, Chinese, and Composition today. In that order.

We got a full period of studying before English, so of course I used it to catch up on my sleep, what with staying up until almost one, in the dark, typing up yesterday's entry.

I finished the English test in twenty minutes, even though we had seventy minutes in all to complete it in (when I told Mom about it later, she said that my classmates'd kill me. I told her that they are long since accustomed to me finishing anything English ridiculously early. Actually, I finish everything quite quickly, as long as I have a halfway decent grasp of the subject).

Just as I was pulling my coat over my head to sleep, I saw the History teacher walk in. Soon, I felt her tapping my head and asking if I'd finished the paper. I said, "Yes, I've finished it and double-checked." She didn't bother me after that. Miss Yang sometimes uses English in class when we have a marked lack of response (she studied abroad before, so all her grammar, whatever, are correct, except for her dialect, which is somewhat broken. It just doesn't sound smooth, like a native speaker's), and I am currently trying my best to irritate her by translating everything she's saying back into Chinese. I'm waiting to see if she'll get fed up with me. Actually, Michael also speaks perfect English, having lived in the US for some time before, but his Chinese isn't good enough, and neither is his English, so he doesn't like translating as much as I do. I guess the vast amount of reading I do have paid off. I went back to sleep after it. I got a solid fiftyminutes of sleep! I love English.

Alice had to go into her class today for the mocks, so I had nothing to do during break time. I mostly spent it eating and reading "How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse" by Cressida Cowell. Yes, it's a half-illustrated children's book, but it's really funny. A few people borrowed my paper to check, as they always do. It always makes me feel rather smug.

After around twenty minutes of studying, it was time for Science. Yes, all the times for mocks are different from our normal periods, so the school has to add a hand-shaken bell at the appropriate intervals. However, this meant that we'd have to endure the noise that the 7th and 8th graders make during their break. There's a lot of screaming, for some strange reason. There always is.

I hurried to climb the three flights of stairs the fifth floor when Science was finished. I think I did okay on it, as I didn't feel like I was drowning in a sea of hopelessness while I was doing it.

When I got there, both Alice and Yvonne were still queuing up to get their lunch (they eat the school's lunch, which is actually provided by some food company. There're about four crates per class, and everyone who eats it has to line up and take turns ladling out their portions). They took a long time; it was around twelve fifteen when we decided to go eat outside the Guidance Office, where there's a very nice outdoor garden.

The weather was simply glorious. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and there was a cool breeze blowing. It doesn't get much better than this. The only drawback was that is was really bright. But I'm not complaining. Soon enough, when the temperature shoots back up, I'll be cursing the sun and the heat it brings, so I might as well enjoy it now while the temperature is acceptable.

Part of the floor of the garden was wooden-paneled, so we sat down to eat on the ground. When nap rolled around, we went into the office to tell Mdm. Lin we're going to stay out here and hurried back out.

The three of us ended up lying on the floor, soaking up the sunshine and talking. Two other students, one of them a girl in Yvonne's class, were watering the plants nearby, but we ignored them.

It felt so good to just lie there relaxing under a clear blue sky in the spring, with two of my favorite people in the world.

All too soon, we had to go back to class for the Chinese test.

I have no idea how I did on it, but I did horrible on the last mock, so I'm hoping that I'll improve somewhat this time. However, studying for Chinese never works for me. Unlike Science or Social Studies, Chinese is 'range-less', which means that I'll never ever finish studying it properly. I hate reading in Chinese, so that might have contributed some, as I spend all of my time on English. That is mostly because, to me, reading in my native language is work, while reading in this current one is relaxation. You can guess which one I'm more fond of.

Alice, Yvonne, and I had agreed on bringing some food to the other garden on the third floor during cleaning (did I mention that our school is really picturesque, and we have won a "Campus Construction" award or something similar). Jenny turned up as well, and we had a mini-picnic there.

Fourth part of the mocks was composition. The title was ridiculous: 'Unfinished Business'. We have to write around 400 words about something that we left unfinished, and that we wished we'd done properly.

What the heck? I couldn't even make one up properly. I ended up spouting random nonsense (it's what I almost always end up doing) about how I should have kept my diary in the 7th and 8th grades, as we have no time now. No, I didn't mention this at all. Ugh. I'm dreading the marks.

Even though we'd already had one full day of exams, we still had an afternoon test today (Civics. I happily got a 91 on it), because there's night study tonight and we can't have an empty slot of time in between.

I managed to finish exercises from the '30 Days Before Exam' exercise books that Mom bought for me (because it's last-minute revision, the amount of questions in it is not that large, and the whole book is quite small, but comes with an even smaller revision booklet, which was actually rather helpful), for ALL of Chinese History and Geography. Needless to say, my eyes felt a bit funny. Using them for almost 160 minutes with only a paltry ten-minute break will do that to you.

During the second break, I braved the dark staircase to go to find Tiffany on the second floor. She was still doing exercises, even though it was break, something that she is prone to doing. Halfway through, her mom showed up with some extra books for her, because Tiffany had phoned her and asked her to bring them over. She is so lucky! I'd never dare to ask my mom to bring me revision things; I would find some way of entertaining myself.

When I was on my way home, I ended up talking a bit with George, yes, the guy from the harmonica classes. I'd just crossed the first pedestrian crossing when I turned back and saw him right behind me. Of course, we exchanged greetings, and a bit awkwardly, chatted for a bit. Mostly about school, test ranks, and such. Unfortunately, his house is really close to the school, so I think I walked with him for all of three minutes before he reached the gates to his condo (well, I think it counts as a condo, even though they're much smaller here in scale than the ones in Singapore that I used to live in. For example, they have only two buildings, while the condo complex I lived in had ten. And we had a swimming pool, a gym, plus basketball/tennis/badminton courts. Yeah, I loved the place, and I had a heck of a good time playing around the whole area with Victor and a couple of his friends. Ah, good times).

Well, having any sort of company is already amazing to me, as everyone who goes the same way as me is not in night study. Anymore.